SNRLabs in TI Wireless summit, Shanghai, September 2007
SNRLabs attended TI Wireless summit in Shanghai in late September. It was an exciting event to meet top Chinese handset makers in this very high growth market. Every time I visit Shanghai I’m always pleasantly surprised about its changing city landscape especially Pudong.
Shanghai is fast resembling Ridley Scott’s Sci-fi masterpiece film Blade runner’s futuristic landscape. We were impressed with several wireless players’ exciting roadmap for ULC (ultra low cost) phones tailored for emerging economies such as China and India. At same time, walking along the street I noticed more people with Über high-end phones such as Nokia N95 compared to US. People in China like much of Asia (well, more like younger people), tend to buy phones as a fashion statement. It was the first time for SNRLabs in China to meet handset makers and present our technology to them. Our product Convergence Manager runs on both Windows Mobile and Linux platform, and this fact certainly didn’t escape China’s handset makers which are heavily focused on Linux solutions. We used China Mobile GSM network (Yes, LIVE GSM network that paying customers use) to run our convergence manager on and the GSM audio quality was very good. On a side note, we took our first ride on the ‘Maglev’ train, aka Magnetic Levitation train (reminds me of Blade runner again) that runs between Shanghai to its Shanghai Pudong Airport. It’s a ride like no other - technically we flew there. If you get a chance you must experience the Maglev!